Barbara van Buskirk is descended from artists, but if not for her own determination she would've missed her calling. "My grandfather and father were artists," she said. "I started college as an art major, but was discouraged by a professor in the first class I took. So I walked across the hall and switched my major to sociology." Undaunted, she "took all my electives in art." Since then, she said, "I have been making and exhibiting monotypes."

Monotypes are not to be confused with monoprints. The monotype medium she works in results in a one-of-a-kind unique print. By contrast, the monoprint process produces a limited number of prints that share a common native image. Techniques like woodblock, etching and lithograph also produce multiple prints.

She described her process. "I use a water-based ink. Basically, you have a flat surface, you take ink or paint. You apply it, put it on a press, put a piece of paper on it and apply pressure. You get one. They're unique, they're one-of-a-kind. It's not an edition. You can build it up with layers. You can cut em' up. You can do anything, it's so much fun."

Why this medium? "To see what happens," she said. "This is a very experimental medium. You never know what you're going to get. You have to have that uncertain element, and that's the press."

The uncertainty of the end product was a key element in her choice. "I do a lot of different things. I do ceramics. I've done weaving. I've done oil painting. A lot of the mediums I use are on paper. The thing I like about print making is, it's paper and you can experiment and see what happens. You haven't invested as much. You never really know what it's going to look like."

She got hooked almost immediately. "We were living in Albuquerque. I did print making in college. I went to a museum to see a demo. I was working full time and this was a quick process. It combined print making and painting and I loved it. Two months later (the instructor) moved the whole shebang within three blocks of our house, so I took a class. I became a member (of a group studio) for a year to see if this is a hobby or if it's something I want to do for the rest of my life. The first two pieces I exhibited sold. After three years I got my own press and my own studio." That was 18 years ago. She works from a small home space, as well as a studio in the Button Factory in Portsmouth.

Her goal is to engage viewers by making a piece of art they'll find interesting. "I hope it connects somehow," she said. "It's really a yard sale: one person's treasure is another person's trash. It's so subjective. The question for me is not 'is that piece good or bad,' but 'is it interesting?' I want somebody to find it as interesting as I do."

She said that she exhibited "almost continually" for the first decade or so after she began making monotypes. When she and her husband moved to Portsmouth in 2012, "I decided not to exhibit. I would work on this body of work and see how far I can take it. I've been working on them for four years."

Commercial artists usually work on deadlines set by clients. Fine artists rarely have such constraints, which can make it a challenge to know when a piece is "finished." How does she know when to stop "working" a piece? "You just know. Sometimes I don't know." One piece sat unfinished for two years. "In February I thought, 'why don't you try this?' and I did this and that and it was done. You just know. Sometimes I don't think it's done." Trying to decide which piece to submit to a gallery, a friend pointed to a monotype and said, "submit that one." Barbara said, "It's not done. She said, 'yes it is.' Sometimes someone tells you when it's done."

Sometimes a work of art can speak to the audience. "When I was in Albuquerque I worked with a woman originally from Maine. I did several monotypes of the rooftops of houses (in Maine). She saw (the monotype) and it reminded her of being back east. She bought it. In a couple of years she and her husband moved to New York state. She told me it was looking at that piece every day," that contributed to their decision to move.

SOSEScript: ampanalytics.php5 failed executing with the following error:
Error on line 12 position 1: file_get_contents(): SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages:
error:1407742E:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:tlsv1 alert protocol version
Error on line 12 position 1: file_get_contents(): Failed to enable crypto
Error on line 12 position 1: file_get_contents(http://www.fosters.com/?template=ampanalytics): failed to open stream: operation failed
Error on line 19 position 1: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()